Terrorize Y'all's Neighborhood
by lloydskywalkers
Summary: In hindsight, letting Lloyd run loose on a holiday made for excessive candy consumption is probably a bad idea, but c'mon. You gotta take a break from training some time, and they're all suckers for Lloyd's puppy eyes anyways. (And yes, the title is shamelessly ripped off from Thriller.)


**(I can't write short fics, you guys. I _tried_ , and I just. Please tell me how you write fics of a reasonable length, what is the secret of concise-ness.)**

 **Okay so I _know_ that Day of the Departed is kind of the Ninjago equivalent of Halloween, I guess, but I refuse to believe that Ninjago does not have a holiday where you dress up and run around getting enough candy to rot your teeth, because Lloyd would love that. Maybe they just take place really close to each other, or they're joint-holidays, or something. **

**Either way, here's a teeth-rottingly sappy Halloween fic - hope you all are having a great holiday!**

 **(Also, quick note: parts of this are also heavily inspired by headcanons/fanart going around of Lloyd with tiny baby fangs, because I like that idea and it worked here.)**

* * *

"Kai."

"Kai, look."

Kai rolls his eyes, glancing skyward briefly before turning.

Sure enough, Lloyd is holding a bloodied, rubber eyeball up to his own tightly closed one, his face screwed up in a grotesque expression. "Agh, my eye fell out!"

Kai leans one arm against the shopping cart, the other on his hip. "What did I tell you about picking stuff up we aren't gonna buy?" he says, even as he suppresses a snort.

Lloyd's expression falls, and he sticks his tongue out at him. "You're not fun," he grouses.

"I'm lots of fun," Kai says. "I'm just trying not to raise the Green Ninja to be a corrupt child criminal who steals bloody eyeballs from Walmart."

"I'm not stealing," Lloyd protests. "Look, I got it from the Halloween section, it's right there!"

Kai looks up and realizes that he has, indeed, made the crucial error of wandering into the Halloween section with Lloyd in tow, when they're only supposed to be getting a few groceries.

"Oops," he mutters.

"Oooh, look at all the fake blood they have…"

Kai quickly makes to drag Lloyd away before he's forever swallowed by aisles of plastic skeletons and cheap ghoul masks. "C'mon, bud, we've still gotta get stuff for meals," he says, as he tugs a reluctant Lloyd toward the food aisles. "We can't all eat rubber eyeballs for dinner."

"Aw, but they have so much cool stuff," Lloyd pouts, watching the Halloween aisle disappear forlornly. "What's the point of Halloween if you guys aren't even gonna let me celebrate it?"

Kai is only half-listening what Lloyd is saying, too intent on the scrawled shopping list he's got in his hand. He brings it closer to his face, squinting. Why do they keep letting Nya write the shopping lists? Her hand-writing is terrible, they should just appoint Zane as secretary from now on.

"-and that's why Halloween is _clearly_ the best holiday in the entire world," Lloyd is still rattling on. "It's way better than those other dumb holidays, kris-ness, or whatever-"

"You mean _Christmas_?" Kai gapes at him. He shakes his head. "Boy, we're gonna have to change your mind on that one…"

Lloyd shakes his head. "Halloween is definitely the best, because you get to dress up and scare people, but most importantly you get-" He stops abruptly, eyes going wide as Kai desperately tries to drag them to the next aisle.

" _Candy_ , Kai, can we stop, please, please _please_ -"

"Lloyd, I told you, we're only here for groceries."

Lloyd groans, hanging off the shopping cart as Kai struggles to push it forward, kicking at Lloyd with his leg. "Just some of the mini snickers bars? The ones with little ghosts on them?"

"Lloyd-"

"I'll _die_ without them."

"You've been hanging out with Jay too much," Kai huffs, dragging Lloyd up by his arm. "Look, if you're good, maybe I'll buy you a candy bar at the check-out."

Lloyd brightens immediately at that. "Okay!" He says. "What's next? Do we need cereal? 'Cause the cereal's right here. Can we get Froot Loops?"

Kai rolls his eyes, but he can't help but grin at Lloyd's enthusiasm as he practically tears down the aisle, the sleeves of Jay's old hoodie (that's still _way_ too large for him) flopping over his hands again as he does.

The grin slides off his face as Kai glances back down at the shopping list, highly conscious of the tiny numbers Nya's scrawled at the bottom of the page. _Those_ are painfully legible. He drags a hand over his face. They're not scrapped for money, per say, but after everything - the loss of basically all their belongings on the _Bounty_ to the Devourer _,_ the cost of keeping up with rent - they really do need to be keeping an eye on things, financially. They aren't terrible, but it reminds Kai uncannily of the days he spent struggling to support himself and Nya on the blacksmith shop.

It also means he can't buy Lloyd anything he wants - not even cheap little bloody eyeballs.

Kai glances over the list again, chewing on the inside of his cheek. They can't not get ibuprofen, that's a big no-go. Basic medical supplies are a must, obviously, and he can't skimp on the milk or Zane'll kill him. They could _maybe_ skip the anxiety meds this time, but then Kai would feel awful if anyone had trouble-

"What's wrong?" Lloyd says, craning his head over Kai's arm. "Do we not have enough money? Do you owe some to somebody? Are we in trouble with the mob?"

"Are we - what?" Kai blinks. "The mob - no, Lloyd, geez. How do you even know about that?"

"Gene had an uncle in it! He said they would go yank people off the street, then they would like, steal their kidneys an' stuff if they couldn't pay you back," Lloyd says, gleefully.

Kai stares at him, mentally despairing. He finally decides to let this particular one go. "No, Lloyd," he sighs, wearily. "We're not in trouble with the mob. We're just…a little tight on stuff, right now."

Kai winces. How is he supposed to explain their financial woes to a kid? "Sorry kiddo, we probably won't be able to get those snickers today."

"It's okay," Lloyd says, with surprising nonchalance. "I know we're not super rich or anything. Stuff cost a lot. Before I was with you guys, back when I was on my own, I would try to buy food and stuff, sometimes? But it cost _so much_. Who even has that much money, anyways?"

Kai winces even harder, feeling the same frustrating mix of pained anger he does whenever Lloyd brings up his childhood thus far.

"-anyways, the point is, I totally get why people become bank robbers, because imagine if you had that much money, you could buy, like, _so much_ candy-!"

"And that's our cue to check out," Kai says, a hand on Lloyd's back as he ushers him past the employee eyeing them suspiciously. "Didn't I say we were trying _not_ to turn you into a corrupt child criminal?" he hisses.

"It was just a joke! You're _never_ fun, geez-"

They get through the check-out line mercifully quick, and Kai's total ends up being slightly under budget, so he caves and buys them a snickers bar to split. Lloyd is seemingly pacified, so Kai decides it's a good time to bring something back up.

"Anyways, back to the whole 'we're tyrants who won't let you celebrate Halloween' thing," Kai says, as they pile the now-bagged groceries back into the shopping cart. "Where'd you get that idea? We're obviously going to celebrate. You can even go trick-or-treating with the other kids in Ninjago City, if you want. Or we can hit up Jamanaki, or Cole's hometown, I guess."

Whatever place is safest at the moment, Kai decides, as they head out of the store.

Lloyd, to his surprise, doesn't exactly look thrilled with that idea. "I dunno," he says, dully. "I don't really wanna hang out with the other kids. Can we just watch scary movies at the apartment?"

"What's wrong with the other kids?" Kai says, frowning. Lloyd isn't usually shy - maybe a little quiet around new people, but he's _definitely_ not one to shy away from any opportunity to get candy, regardless of who's around.

Lloyd shrugs, looking down as he toes a scuff on the linoleum floor. "There's nothing wrong with _them_ ," he mutters. "It's more kinda...me."

Kai blinks, coming to a halt. "What?"

Lloyd gives a jerky little shrug. He grins up at him, a toothy one that shows his slightly too-sharp teeth, his red eyes flashing. "'Cause I'm the spawn of evil, duh, they all fear me!"

He says it brightly, still grinning fiercely, but Kai catches the slight waver in his voice, the fake edge in his smile.

 _Oh_. Kai's heart twists.

He opens his mouth to give a rebuttal, fully prepared to insist to Lloyd that nobody even notices those things - and stops. Kai hesitates, thinking back to their trip in the store so far. You'd think, living in a place where literal snake people ran around constantly, red eyes wouldn't draw much attention. But living in a place where Garmadon is relatively well-known…

There'd been that shopper passing by who had done a double-take at Lloyd, her eyes quickly skirting away from his. Kai had shot her a death glare, and Lloyd thankfully hadn't noticed, but…still.

Kai's jaw tightens, and he feels about ready to bare his own teeth.

"You just…you just gotta show 'em it's nothing," he opts instead, trying to sound encouraging. Cole is usually much better at this positivity stuff. Or Zane. Or Jay, really, just anyone other than Kai. "Just be yourself," he finally says. "Once they actually meet you, they'll like you, no sweat."

"Just be yourself? What kind of stupid advice is that?" Lloyd glares. " _You_ didn't even like me when you met me."

"Wha- that's not true," Kai says, frowning. "I-"

"You guys hung me from a roof!"

Kai cringes. "Ah, yeah…um….look, in hindsight, that was super uncool-"

"And then you all hated me for like, a month, until you found out I was the Green Ninja-"

"Hey, woah, now _that's_ not true," Kai says, grabbing Lloyd's shoulders firmly, forcing him to look at him. "We definitely liked you before then, and you know it. But c'mon, Lloyd - you acted like a total brat, you know that, right?"

Lloyd huffs, but he nods, looking sour. "Yeah, yeah," he mutters. His expression falls a bit. "But…you guys are different. No one else has ever liked me. All the kids at Darkley's hated my guts."

Kai is dying, just a bit, on the inside. Like the _I-Need-To-Light-Someone-On-Fire-For-This_ kind of dying, the kind where he goes out and does something stupid-

"Except for maybe Brad," Lloyd mutters, hand on his chin. "I think he sorta liked me, a little bit…"

Kai finally cuts in, his voice only _mildly_ venomous. "Well, the kids at Darkley's were all little _assholes_ -"

"Nya says you're not supposed to use that word," Lloyd says, suddenly very serious. He'd taken his _"language learned at Darkley's is not acceptable language if you want dessert tonight"_ lecture very seriously, it appears.

Kai huffs. "Okay, those little _jerks_ \- they don't know what they're talking about. They're a bunch of brainless rock heads."

Lloyd gives a slightly happier giggle at that. "Like Cole?"

Kai gives him a side eye. "Be _nice."_

"Cole is way cooler than anyone at Darkley's, anyways," Lloyd amends.

"How about this," Kai says. "We all go trick-or-treating together, so if anyone decides to mess with you, I light them on fire."

Lloyd lights up brighter than the flashing electronic pumpkins next to them, and Kai mentally congratulates himself.

"For real?" Lloyd says. "You'll dress up and everything?"

"Cross my heart," Kai draws an _x_ across his chest. "Now hop on," he says, patting the shopping cart handle. "I'll run and push us across the parking lot."

Lloyd whoops, hopping up on the cart.

"Okay," he says, as Kai puts one foot up. "I lied. You're sometimes fun."

"Oh, just sometimes, huh," Kai grins.

"On weekends, and holidays, and-"

Kai never does learn when else he's fun, because Lloyd is too busy laughing as they careen down the parking lot, shopping cart rattling loudly in their wake.

* * *

Nya thinks them all trick-or-treating a great idea, and she claims that she can make fake blood all on her own - so by the time Zane agrees with her, nobody stands a snowball's chance in hell of saying no to _that_ particular team-up of puppy eyes.

Cole tries arguing that they don't have costumes, until Jay wickedly reminds him that they've still got the pirate outfits from the whole thing with Captain Soto and his men - but by that point, Cole isn't resisting much anyways. Lloyd's excitement is infectious, and it's fun to celebrate holidays with a family this big.

It's something none of them are quite used to, but it's welcome nonetheless.

"We're only sticking to this neighborhood, okay?" Cole tells them, for the hundredth time. "It'll gonna be crowded enough that I doubt anyone will notice it's us, and they're running a haunted house in the middle, so-"

"A _haunted house?_ " Lloyd says, looking up from where he's finishing off the blood splatters on his own costume. "Can I take back what I said about Ninjago City being lame? This is awesome."

Lloyd, economically, has decided to as a ghost, which only requires Nya's old bedsheet, eyeholes, and a good deal of homemade fake blood splattered over it.

"I've gotta be a _scary_ ghost," Lloyd tells Jay, seriously. "The more blood, the better."

"You got it, kid," Jay says, who's getting pretty liberal with the blood himself.

"You're a pirate, Jay, not a zombie," Zane says, ducking the drops of red paint that go flying.

"A zombie pirate," Kai offers.

"A _zirate_ ," Jay grins. Cole groans.

Nya's the last to dress up, and she's ended up going as a vampire, to Lloyd's eternal delight.

"You look like me!" he says excitedly, as Nya gives him a sharp-toothed grin.

"Yup," she says, running her tongue over the plastic fangs and making a face. "They feel kinda weird, because they're just _lame_ fakes, but they look super cool, right?"

Lloyd's own fangs (which is a generous term) are tiny in comparison, of course, so they really look absolutely nothing like each other, but the megawatt grin he's got on - Nya's playing the long game here, and Kai has to respect her for that.

This means he's gotta get those snickers bars with the little ghosts on them later, though.

* * *

Trick-or-treating ends up being a lot more fun than Kai had been expecting - then again, he's never really been himself that he can remember, so maybe it's a new experience for all of them.

Well, except Jay and Cole. They're both _far_ too invested in making sure they hit every single house possible.

Kai grins as he watches them head back from their latest house - Lloyd makes the cutest little terror of a ghost he's ever seen, swamped in the sheet as he is. Albeit a very bloody ghost, fake blood dripped gruesomely all over him. But he seems happy enough, flapping his sheet-covered arms around at anyone who dares get near them.

Well, he _had_ been. Lloyd had discovered, much to his dismay, that it's almost impossible to eat candy with a sheet draped over his face - though there were an amusing few minutes where he had tried vainly to shove several Starbursts through the eyeholes at once. He's finally given up and shoved the sheet back over his head, where it drapes over him like a very bloody cape as he surveys his bag of candy. He's beaten them all by a ridiculously large margin, but that's just because they're all suckers who are slipping half their own candy into his bag the entire night.

"Hey, you got any chocolate you wanna share?" Cole says, reaching his hand toward Lloyd's bag.

Lloyd opens his mouth and snaps his teeth together. "I'll bite you," he threatens. "Like a shark."

"Ooh, Lloyd the Fangfish," Cole pretends to shudder. "Watch out, he's got rabies."

"I _do_ not," Lloyd huffs, but he grudgingly hands Cole one of his Kit-Kats.

"Don't eat too much in one go," Zane reminds him. "You don't want to make yourself sick."

"Aw, c'mon Zane, it's Halloween," Jay says, through a mouthful of his own candy. "Lighten up."

"Hey, Zane can't help being such a mom," Kai says, slinging his arm around him. Zane shrugs at him good-naturedly, not hard enough to actually shake him off. "One of us has to be."

Zane rolls his eyes long-sufferingly. The moon dips behind a cluster of clouds, darkening the streets a bit, and Kai's about to suggest they head home - when a voice echoes across the street.

"Lloyd - hey, Lloyd!"

Lloyd's head snaps up. "Brad?" he says, almost incredulously, as the boy runs up to them, tugging on the hood of his own costume.

Kai stiffens, and he's distinctly aware of Nya giving the kid the stink-eye where she stands off to the side. Sure, Lloyd kind-of made-up with his friends after they lured them all to Darkley's and tried to re-evil-brainwash him, but years of being demon brats don't just go away (look at Lloyd). That, and Lloyd's words from earlier are still pretty fresh in his mind.

Kai narrows his own eyes. Lloyd can handle himself against one little tyke, but just in case…Kai isn't too opposed to shoving some kids in a trash can tonight.

Lloyd and Brad have gone quiet, carefully eyeing each other. Kai holds his breath as they size each other up. Brad was the one Lloyd said might have liked him, right? Maybe this can work in his favor, then. If Lloyd can just be chill for five seconds, then maybe-

"Your fake blood is lame," Lloyd finally says. Nya smacks a hand against her head.

Apparently, it's the right thing to say when you're an ex-evil hellion of a kid, though, because Brad immediately relaxes, jutting his lip out in a half-pouting scowl.

"Is _not._ Where'd you get yours, anyways?" He gives the ninja a wide-eyed glance. "Did you get it from somebody they _killed?_ " he whispers.

Zane sputters as Cole claps a hand over his mouth, holding back snickers. Lloyd rolls his eyes.

"Nah, they'd never _actually_ kill somebody. They're good guys, remember? Nya - that's Nya, by the way! - she made it."

"Cool," Brad says, looking a little less nervous. "Hey, Gene's over at the playground - wanna help scare him? We still owe him for the fake spider thing, right?"

"Oh - uh, yeah, obviously," Lloyd says, and Kai almost snorts at the gleam in his eye. Gee, you spend all this time trying to reform a kid.

The two fall into easy conversation - mostly plotting an unfortunate Gene's demise - as if they'd never been strained at all, and Kai watches as Lloyd runs off with him to the other kids, feeling a little abandoned and a lot protective.

"Just one little hair," he says to Nya. "I'll just singe one off."

"Kai, he's his friend, look," Nya sighs, gesturing at Lloyd and Brad where they're now tearing around the playground with several other kids (who are, no doubt, equal hellions). "They're just having fun."

"Yeah, well, I don't trust 'em."

"Well, Lloyd can always blast them across town with an energy burst, if they give him any trouble," Jay says, tossing a chocolate bar at Cole.

Zane frowns at him. "That's…not exactly the use of power we should be teaching him."

"What, you don't want Lloyd to protect himself from bullies?"

Zane considers the point. "Perhaps, if the situation called for it…"

"Great!" Jay stands up, linking his arm with Zane. "Then who's up for the haunted house with me?"

Cole takes a step back. "Nuh-uh, you know how I am with creepy houses. I don't do that kind of stuff-"

"You do with us!" Nya says cheerfully, grabbing one arm while Kai wrestles the other. Cole sputters indignantly as they drag him along. "Come on, let's see if Lloyd and his little demon gang wanna join."

* * *

"Welp!" Jay throws the door open with unnecessary dramatics as they pile back into the apartment. "We're banned for life. I hope you guys are happy."

"Hey, I wasn't the one who drop-kicked the chainsaw actor," Kai mutters.

Cole flushes. "I'm a ninja, I can't help it - it was reflex!""

"Was the high-pitched screaming reflex?" Jay says. Cole elbows him in the gut, and Jay snatches the candy bar from his hand in retaliation. Cole gives an indignant yelp.

"Hey! That was my last chocolate bar!"

Nya roll her eyes as she squeezes past Jay, who's loudly chewing Cole's candy bar in his face. Lloyd totters in behind her, half-buried in the pile of candy he's amassed in his bag. He's giggling manically, and the look in his eyes is genuinely more terrifying than anything Kai's ever seen.

"Pace yourself on that candy, alright?" Kai says, eyeing him. "I don't wanna wake up to you puking your guts out tonight."

"Nuh-uh," Lloyd says, through a mouthful of taffy. "I don' ge' sick from candy. S'impossible."

"That's what you said the last time," Cole says, snatching the bag from Lloyd's hand and ignoring his cry of displeasure. "That's enough for tonight. You can eat yourself sick again in the morning."

Nya strides by them, falling onto the couch next to Kai with a a _thwump_. Kai watches in amusement as she rubs a hand across her eye, smearing mascara and eyeliner across her cheek in a raccoon-like smudge. Nya notices his stare, glancing at her hand and huffing.

"Remind me not to wear costume makeup again," she mutters, as Kai snorts. "At least I didn't ruin it for the picture."

She digs into her bag, pulling out a slightly-rumpled but still glossy photograph.

"Not that it matters," Nya continues. "This is the worst picture of us I've ever seen." She makes a face, staring at the picture the workers at the haunted house had snapped of them before they went in.

Kai shifts on the couch so he's looking over Nya's shoulder, squinting at the photo. "Is that supposed to be Zane?" he says, pointing at the blurry figure on the right.

"May…be?" Nya says. "At least _you_ turned out alright."

Kai grins at where he's taking up half the picture, Lloyd wrapped in a chokehold around his neck that could be considered a hug if generous, both of them grinning wildly.

"Someone's gotta bring the beautiful," Kai says. He looks up to where Lloyd is being accosted by Cole, having somehow gotten his hands on yet another chocolate bar.

"Lloyd, I said that's enough. Lloyd, don't - no! Stop!"

Lloyd's hand stills, the chocolate bar hovering inches from his mouth.

"Put it down," Cole hisses. The chocolate bar moves half an inch closer. "Lloyd! No!"

Lloyd shoves the chocolate in his mouth before Cole can blink. " _Lloyd!_ "

Lloyd springs from the chair, cackling wildly as he runs. Cole tears after him, seething. "I'll use you as a toothbrush for the Ultradragon, you pint-sized _punk_ -"

"I'm surprised Sensei Wu hasn't come in and killed us yet," Jay says, flopping down on the rug below Kai and Nya, fumbling with the remote.

"He went out for the evening," Zane says. "Which means you can scream as loudly as you want over the movie."

Jay chucks a wrapper at Zane's head. He snatches it easily, tossing it back at Jay. Their worn TV finally flickers to life just as Cole and Lloyd finally wind down, Lloyd looking a lot less gleeful with his decision.

" _O-oh_ , too much candy," Lloyd moans, clambering onto the couch next to Kai.

"You puke on me, I'm tossing you off the roof," Kai says, but he wraps an arm around him nonetheless, pulling Lloyd against his side.

"No you won't," Lloyd yawns, eyelids already fluttering as the movie starts. "You'd miss me too much. Wouldn't ever have any fun without me."

"Oh, I wouldn't?"

"Nope. I gotta…keep you from getting boring."

"No worries on that one," Kai says, grinning. He bites back his own yawn, settling further into the couch as Lloyd nods off, curling up against his side. "No worries at all."

Lloyd is soundly asleep against his side in seconds, snoring softly. Kai's getting all sorts of looks from Jay and Cole, but he masterfully ignores them - for now. Nya's taken to nodding off on his other side, so he's kinda sibling-sandwiched at the moment. Upsetting them isn't worth putting Jay in a headlock tonight.

"Here," Nya suddenly whispers over the movie, waving the picture up at him from where she's using his shoulder as a pillow. "Wanna put it in your modeling portfolio?"

Kai maturely sticks his tongue out at her, but he still snatches the picture. "Nah, but I'll keep it as a reminder of what massive _dorks_ you all are."

They settle back to watching the movie, and he glances at the picture again. It's a pretty cute one - not that he's gonna admit that. It's a keeper, at least. They really _don't_ have a lot of pictures of their team, and hardly any at all with Lloyd and his disaster-haired self.

Ah well. He can take more later. They've got plenty of time.


End file.
